Outside My Own Four Walls
by Chakkari
Summary: Lain recounts her story to the one stranger with Big enough Ears to hear her clearly. AU. R&R, please.


"My story?"  
"That's right, how'd you get to where you are now?"  
"I...don't really think I have one."  
I suppose I had never really given it much thought before. No, that's wrong. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Everyday my life as it is now played and replayed in my mind like it wasn't mine. Each memory was like watching a sick, rented porn. I could never get over it, no matter how I looked at that.  
"Come on. Each story has a beginning. Start from there."  
It's true; I guess I did have that.

***

"2 minutes till show time, Ms. Lain." Lain heard the techie, but she didn't respond. She knew what time it was. This was 4 years ago, about 2 week before her tenth birthday. Back then, Lain Iwakura was known throughout the nation as a wonderful composer and a beautiful violist, and that night, like many other nights, Lain was performing in front of a 10,000 plus person audience. Also like many other nights, of the thousands of people out there, none of them were her parents.  
Her parents had never come to a single performance not since Lain began performing publicly. She had never even gotten a chance to play for them. Lain always practiced before they got home and they never asked her to play for them. And when they dropped her off for performances, they took off somewhere else as soon as Lain closed the car door. She wasn't really sure if they were busy or just didn't like her. Either way, maybe if they had stayed for the performance, they could've avoided their tragedy.  
Her two minutes were up. Lain gripped her viola case and walked out onto the stage. The lights on the stage are always bright, and of course they were all centered on her, glinting off of the rhinestones sewn into her black dress. All those lights got annoying by her third performance, and this was her seventeenth. But she preserved. The band finished their warm up just as Lain approached center stage and was greeted by a sea of applause from the audience. Everyone Lain knew would feel honored, even ecstatic to have so many people applauding them but she didn't feel anything. The first few times, she did feel a certain warmth, being accepted by so many people. But just like the lights, they become more distracting than advantageous.  
Once the audience settled down, Lain began. She turned to her orchestra, who only had enough light on them to glint off of the occasional tuba or trombone. Lain raised her hands up in the air, signaling for them to get ready. They lifted their instruments to their mouths and Lain began the waltz. Swoop left, swoop up, swoop down. Swoop left, swoop up, swoop down. The band played in tempo with her hand's motion. After about 2 minutes of conducting, Lain turned back toward the audience and let the band continue the rhythm. She bent down and pulled her viola out of its case. The instrument itself was beautiful: a rich dark mahogany brown body and a cherry neck. The bow was cherry too, both polished to a shine.  
Lain set the viola under her chin and a few seconds getting back in tempo with the band, she started to play her part of her composition. It was a waltz, as said before, just as beautiful as her viola. Her waltz had many of the same musicalities that were in the most timeless pieces. But that's unavoidable. Lain had to make hers different. To do that, while her band played a waltz harmony, she played the melody of a slowed jig. The two of them ran beautifully together. The original waltz piece told of a widowed queen who enjoyed ballroom dances but had no one she cared to dance with. Obviously a sad piece, but the jig was just the opposite, although its story was similar. This song told a humorous tale of a Queen who went insane from a song playing in her head. Although slowed, the jig kept a light-heartedness about it in the pitch and rhythm. A beautiful counter to the sad waltz. The viewers thought so too. When the band and Lain finally ended, the whole theater exploded in applause. Again, normal people would be exhilarated with this praise but Lain felt nothing.  
Lain and her band played 6 pieces that night, including that first waltz. In total, 2 waltzes, 3 classical pieces, two Modern and one impressionist, and finally a Jazz piece. Once it was all over, Lain was graced with a standing ovation from the audience. "Encore, encore!" they yelled as she took her bow and walked off the stage with her case. She had already decided not to give them an encore. Why start now, after all.  
Back in her dressing room, Lain put her viola away, plopped down in front of the vanity, and put her head down. Playing in front of people is far more excruciating than it looks, and Lain was really tired. No, maybe not. More relieved that it was over than tired. Lain wouldn't have to see another crowd like that for another month. When she lifted her head back up, she saw a Camellia and a folded paper taped to the mirror. It had the word "Lain" was written on the outside, in beautiful cursive, just like all the others.  
Lain was used to fan mail, but these notes were different. A little over a year ago, some time after her third performance, Lain started receiving them, but they always appeared in her dressing room, although every one back stage has an obligation to respect her privacy and leave her dressing room alone. No matter what she did, lock it, set alarms, Lain always found a camellia and note on her vanity.  
Lain picked up the note and unfolded it. On the inside in the same beautiful cursive were the words "I'm sorry." It was impossible to tell what they would be sorry about. It wasn't like the notes from before had any threats or the such, they all been almost typical of fan mail, except that, they seemed to know everything about her. Things that Lain would never tell the audience, like hitting a flat note during performances. But they always went over her performances, easily noting everything good, wrong, what they liked and didn't, and Lain agreed entirely with them every time. Still, the idea of someone watching her and judging her that closely. It was unnerving, to say the least.  
While Lain tried to think of what the writer could've meant, her sister came in and told her it was time to go. She gathered her things and left the note in the trash. She decided not to worry about it. Maybe they weren't even serious, just playing a prank. That was what she decided, until she got home, anyway.

When they pulled up, her sister walked her up to the house. Lain was a little glad to see her parents after a long day, although she was never sure if they were glad to see her. They opened the door and right there in the foyer were her parents lying in a pool of their own blood.

"My god..." her sister gasped and ran for the phone. Lain just stood there. She was in shock, but Lain knew she wanted to go over to them, and she just couldn't. That's when Lain saw her. This girl, or at least looked like one, walked pass her. She seemed like a hologram, like an image on a static-filled TV screen that just wandered out of its box. The girl walked over to her father's motionless body and dropped to her knees, kneeling over him. She looked back at Lain, a small tear in her confident and doubting eye, as if to summon Lain, to call her over, before looking back at the body. Lain had no reason to obey, in fact she should have left. But she walked over, and when Lain realized that the girl had disappeared, Lain had already taken her spot, kneeling over her father's body, sobbing her eyes out.


End file.
